Manti, steamed dumplings of horse, pumpkin, and hot pepper smothered in cheese, down home cooking in Kazakhstan

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

We’ve all heard the phrase, and it comes from when horse was on the menu. It was rather significant phrase to me as a kid because I grew up with horses, usually five occasionally six. They were my mother’s hobby and the main reason why I spent some 13 summers of my youth haying until I joined the army. I know horses, haying and ground hornets well. I also know it take one huge hole to bury a dead horse. It’s not a hole you dig by hand. Want a reference point? Dig a hold to bury a car. That’s about right except you have to make it deep or carnivores will dig down to it. Even getting a dead horse to the hole is a chore particularly if it dies in a stall in the barn.

Not only did my mother bring home live horses but horse meat as well. We bought it in the butcher store occasionally. It had to be separated from the beef — other side of the store — but there it was, several different cuts catering to the Canadian shoppers. In fact, horse meat was on the menu at the Harvard Faculty Club up until 1983. It was a common food in the U.S. during WWII and was consumed in quantity because it was not rationed. Archaeologists tell us early man hunted and ate horses. They became beasts of burden much later. Horses are called the noble beast because they will always try to do what you ask of them.

Equinonoid Henry Ford

Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Henry Ford loathed horses. He hated them.  He said he worked hard to develop the car to free man from the Culture of Horses. Ponder that. Here’s a man who helped change an entire society — the world — because he hated a particular animal. Then again, someone who loved horses, which were the main muscle of the day, could have developed the car because they wanted to save horses from all that work and suffering. Either way the internal combustion engine put an end to the horse culture.

Saint Boniface

The banning of horse meat goes back to the eighth century. Popes Zachary and Gregory III both told Saint Boniface to forbid his missionaries to eat horse meat, as it had a strong correlation to the Germanic pagan rituals which Christians were trying to eradicate. The Germans of old liked their horse meat, and still do and until 2005 the United States was the major exporter of resturant grade horse meat.

Japan’s Basashi

Buying horse meat and slaughtering horses for commercial meat was illegal in the United States from 2006 until Nov. 18th, 2011, though it was available in other countries during those times. Horse meat could be in US markets in early 2012 but it was sure to create public controversy. The only legal impediment nationally is funding federal meat inspectors. However, California and Illinois have banned the slaughter of horses for human consumption, and more than a dozen states tightly regulate the sale of horse meat. Not so elsewhere.

In Japan there’s a sashimi dish made of horse meat. Horse is very popular in France.  From a culinary point of view horse meat is lean, much along the taste and texture of moose, deer or kangaroo. It is a gray colored, dry, sweeter than beef, and improves in flavor greatly by the inclusion of fat when cooking or from a marinade. Fresh is far better than frozen.

As mentioned elsewhere most people would not eat their pets, regardless of what those pets are. When I meet someone who has a reptile for a pet I have to remind myself of that least I make a few misplaced iguana shoes or turtle soup jokes. Though we ate horse meat eating our horses when they died was not an option. We buried Ginger, Bonnie, Cheeko, Rusty, Mary and Sootie. And I am sure all these years later I would be bothered by the deed had we eaten those big, lovable pets. However, in hindsight all these years later, we also buried a lot of meat. Combined they weighted some 6,000 pounds. Even after dressing that would be three to four thousand pounds of meat, two tons of it. That’s a lot of food to put into the ground. If raising cattle that we eat is a waste of land resources then what is burying a pet horse?

Horses have cuts just as beef does, with more or less tender parts. We usually bought steaks but they ended up in stews more often than fried. Without some tenderizing and fat the frying pan does not treat horse meat well. The stews were excellent. Indeed, my mother loved New England Boiled Dinners. We had that virtually every Sunday for every Sunday I ever lived at home — without exception — and more than once there was a chunk of horse meat in there growing tender by the long, moist heat.

Foul-mouth chef Gordon Ramsay says horse is healthy, packed with half the fat of beef and has far more Omega 3 fatty acids than beef. He describes it as “slightly gamey” and “packed with protein.” I don’t remember it being gamey at all.

While there are legitimate reasons not to eat horse on the positive side, horses don’t have mad cows disease.

Horse meat with mustard

• 1 1/2 lb. (675 g) lean ground or cubes horse meat
• 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) olive oil
• Tomato Sauce
• 2 Tbsp. (30 mL) olive oil
• 1 cup (250 mL) tomato sauce
• 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) brown sugar or honey
• 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) mustard
• 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) Worcestershire sauce
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

In a pan, sauté the horse meat in oil. Drain the meat and throw out the cooking fat. Put the meat back in the pan. In a glass bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients. Pour into the pan over the meat. Cover and simmer for one hour. Serve with pasta and sprinkle with Parmesan or Pecorino cheese.

Below is a circular published by the state of Florida in 1978. I think it is no longer in print though I have a hard copy. It is reproduced below. Visual quality varied on the original typewritten copy. There is no intent to violate copyright but just to provide information written before the Internet to the Internet. I have moved the index to the front rather than leaving it at the end. The index is by number not page. There is also a four page addendum at the end which was not indexed in the original so if you don’t find your plant in the index, check there.

Addendum

Kochia is related to Lamb's Quarters and Russia Thistle

Bright Ornamental in the Fall

Immigration brought weeds from around the old world to the new world. Quite a few of them came from southern Russia — the grassy steppes — to the prairies of middle America. Among them was Kochia.

Is Kochia a food plant or an ornamental? Most references say it’s an ornamental because of the fiery color it displays in the fall. But isn’t that a modern view with a full belly? It seems more likely that first it was an edible or a dye plant and only after man moved off the farm did it become an ornamental. It’s also part of the Wild West myth.

Black-tailed prairie dog

You know the myth, tumbleweeds rolling though deserted dirt streets just before a good-guy-bad-guy shoot out. Didn’t happen. Hollywood notwithstanding the Wild West and tumbleweeds were several decades apart. Indeed, two weeds known as tumbleweeds  — Kochia and the thorny Salsola kali, the Russian Thistle —  came from southern Russia and really didn’t make it into the”Wild West” until around 1900. However, late day Navajo did use Kochia for drought-resistant sheep forage… Yes, Indians raising sheep. Don’t see that in Wild West movies either. Besides the domestic versions wild Prong Horn sheep and deer like the foliage, Black-tailed prairie dogs eat the seeds as do sparrows and presumably other birds. No one has really studied that.  The Diacrisia virginica (Woolly Bear Moth) feeds on the leaves.

Kochia seeds made into Tonburi

Kochia  leaves and growing tips are edible cooked. The plant is very salty tasting. Seeds are also a garnish called  tonburi with a texture similar to caviar. In fact it is called “land caviar,” “field caviar,” and “mountain caviar.” In Japan tonburi is a delicacy. Seeds are dried, boiled then soaked in cold water for a day. They are rubbed by hand to remove the outer skin. The seeds are a glossy black-green. Plants produce about 15,000 seeds each though three times that is possible. Distribution is by… tumbling.

Like many members of the greater Chenopodium family Kochia, aka fireweed, burning bush and summer cypress, can accumulate nitrates like spinach so if you avoid spinach you should avoid Kochia. Also called Bassia scoparia it is found throughout North America save for Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Maryland. In some states, particularly western states, it is a “noxious” weed, as is the Russian Thistle.

Professor Koch

Kochia (KOH-kee-ah) is named for German Botanist Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch, 5 March 1771 – 14 November 1849, professor of medicine and botany. His best known written work was a treatise on German and Swiss flora entitled Synopsis florae germanicae et helveticae (1835-37.) Scoparia (sko-PAIR- ee-uh) is dead Latin for broom-like.

Green Deane’s”Itemized” Plant Profile: Kochia

Woolly Bear

IDENTIFICATION: Kochia scoparia: The young plant forms a small rosette. Mature Kochia grow from 2 to 5 feet (60–150 cm) tall, usually branched from the base (Don’t confuse with Fivehook Bassia which branches along the main stem.)  Leaves are linear to lance shaped, flat, generally gray green, covered with soft hairs (Kochia is less hairy than Fivehook Bassia.) The leaves have smooth edges, and alternate, 1/5 to 2-2/5 inches (5–60 mm) long and from 1/25 to 2/5 of an inch (1–10 mm) wide. Stems are sometimes reddish late in the season.  Seeds are egg shaped, flattened, and roughly 1/25 to 1/12 of an inch (1–2 mm). Plants under cultivation are softer and fuller than wild specimens.

TIME OF YEAR: Blooms July through October. Flower head is a spike forming clusters of inconspicuous, green, petal-less, stalkless flowers that grow in the axils of reduced leaves.

ENVIRONMENT: Roadsides, fields, pastures, disturbed places, new crop fields, ditches, floodplains to 5,000 feet.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Young leaves and tips cooked, seeds cooked. Protein content ranges from 11 to 22%,  decreasing as the plant matures.

“Green” Perilla

The first Perilla I ever had came from a can, just like the kind sardines snuggle in. The leaves were very spicy and were used that way, as a spice. Later in my garden I grew the plant, which reseeded itself. That’s probably why Perilla is naturalized in the eastern half of North America excluding Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Canadian points north and east. Its native land is India.

Green Perilla Leaves

Strictly speaking Perilla is a monotypic genus. (See article on monotypic genus.) There is only one species in the genus, but three are varieties. There are two major forms of cultivated Perilla, green and red though green is the most common escapee I have seen. Those common names are slightly misleading. The “Green” version is green on top of the leaf, and purple below. The “red” version has leaves that are purplish on top and bottom.

Perilla has been used as a salad ingredient, potherb and for its seed oil for literally thousands of years. And while the seed oil is edible  — up to 64% Omega 3 fatty acids — it may not be the best oil to cook with. The oil, similar to unrefined Canola oil, has a chemical that is a potential lung toxin.  The oil also has been used for lamps, which might be a dangerous use regarding potential lung damage. (Unrefined Canolia oil — rape seed oil — was used for cooking in India and a common cause of lung problems.)

According to the Federal Department of Agriculture Perilla has three chemical that are known lung toxin to cattle; egomaketone, isoegomaketone, and perilla ketone, the latter the most abundant and worse. Tests show Perillla ketone also produced pulmonary emphysema in goats, mice and rats. It does horses as well. While humans eat the species with little issue it is best to use any seed oil cold not heated.

In the greater mint family, noses and palettes disagree on what Perilla tastes and smells like, from cinnamon to licorice. I lean towards spicy cinnamon. It has numerous common names, among them Ao Shiso, Beefsteak Plant, Ji Soo, Perilla, Purple Perilla, Shiso, Wild basil, Wild Red Basil, Chinese Basil, Purple Mint, Rattlesnake Weed, Summer Coleus and Perilla Mint. In some individuals the plant can cause dermatitis.

Purple Perilla

Why the genus was called Perilla by the Latin scholar Linnaeus is debatable. It could mean “little bag” referencing the caylex. Despite what Internet “Baby Name” sites say Perilla (per-RILL-ah) is not an American invention, though it was a common girl’s name in the 1800s in the United States. Perilla was the nick name of Caecillia Metella the poetess, and lover of the Ancient Roman poet Ticida, and many others. Ticida (probably Clodius Aesopus) was not political but besides writing poetry he provided supplies to Julius Caesar’s army in 46 BC. Caecillia also seduced several of Julius Caesar’s intimate friends and was involved in much political scandal and intrigue. Soon married and divorced Caecillia was a talented, savvy, good looking party girl who probably wrote erotic poetry and is also called Lesbia in other poems.  We know that Ticida invented the name “Perilla”  for her by using Greek word play on her family name Metella. When she died we do not know. Thus what was a common proper name in the 1800s for girls in America was at its invention used to protect the public identity of a woman who wrote racy erotic poetry and slept around. And perhaps that is why the species is called Perilla, it’s attractive, spicy, and gets around. Frutescens (frew-TESS-enz) means shrubby or bushy.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile: Perilla

IDENTIFICATION: Perilla frutescens: Stems to a yard high, erect, herbaceous, purple, four-angled, a single vertical groove on each side of the stem. Leaves are opposite, petiolate, purple with a very shallow groove. Blades ovate, serrate, acute, to four inches long (10cm) three inches wide (8cm) sometimes crisped (curled or undulated) or not, typically green above and purple-green or entirely purple below, mostly hairless above, hairy on the veins below. Flower spikes growing out of where a leaf stem meets a main stem or at the top end of the plant. Blossoms pink, four stamens, anthers pinkish, fading to purple, two blossoms per node, each with a folded bract. Bracts broadly ovate when unfolded.

TIME OF YEAR: Flowering August to October.

ENVIRONMENT: Gravel bars, rich soils, alluvial soils or dry soils along streams, spring branches, gravel bars, roadsides, railroads.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Leaves used as a coloring or a spice. Flower spikes in soup or fried. Seeds uses as a spice or a source of edible oil. Sprouts cooked and eaten like a potherb.